[…]In the last 10 years, the Pentagon failed to understand the operational environment, learned the hard way that conventional military methods were ineffective and initially ignored the need to influence perceptions in order to achieve objectives, states the sweeping assessment prepared at the request of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey.

Titled “Decade of War: Enduring Lessons from the Past Decade of Operations,” the May 23 predecisional draft report is the first volume of a study designed to inform the development of tomorrow’s military. It offers an array of recommendations, including calls for a new strategy for meeting military intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs and new legislation to bolster interagency ties, modeled on the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act that reorganized the Defense Department.

Although 80 percent of the military of 2020 is either programmed or already exists today, the Pentagon has a “perishable opportunity to be innovative” by significantly changing the other 20 percent of the force and by changing the way it uses the remaining 80 percent, Dempsey said May 16 in Virginia Beach, VA.

“We’re transitioning from a decade of war,” he said. “A complex and uncertain security environment looms. And as we look toward the future, each service and our total joint force face fundamental questions about their identities, their roles and their capabilities.”

To conduct the study, the Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis office reviewed 46 studies it had prepared from its inception in 2003 through early 2012, examining over 400 findings, observations and best practices in search of enduring lessons. “In general, operations during the first half of the decade were often marked by numerous missteps and challenges, while those in the second half featured successful adaptation to overcome these challenges,” the report states.

The report lays out 11 major lessons related to understanding the operational environment, addressing conventional and unconventional threats, winning hearts and minds, managing major transitions in military operations, adaptation, integrating regular and elite forces, coordinating with other agencies, coalition operations, host-nation partnering, surrogates and proxies and super-empowered threats. More lessons are anticipated in future volumes. The study follows President Obama’s release in January of the Defense Strategic Guidance, which he said would prepare the department for the next decade. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the United States is at a “strategic turning point” following 10 years of war and substantial growth in the defense budget.[…]